Property tax cap a victory for Long Island

If the property tax cap molded by New York State's triumvirate of leaders becomes law, it could rank among the biggest governing accomplishments achieved here in generations.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo held a news conference yesterday to announce an agreement in principle with Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) that would limit annual local tax increases to 2 percent or the rate of inflation (currently 1.6 percent), whichever is less. In one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation, Cuomo's dogged commitment to slow the constant growth of the burden is particularly good news for Long Island that will be welcome across the state.

The proposal includes exceptions for pension contribution increases beyond 2 percent per year, and lets voters authorize exceeding the cap if 60 percent of them agree. It also allows an increased tax levy when development demands new infrastructure, and would let taxing entities levy up to 1.5 percent of their 2 percent limit the following year if they did not use it in the current year.

Those are sensible rules, and ones commonly associated with successful caps, but the plan is not entirely without pitfalls. The exception for increased pension contributions shouldn't be used to sweeten the pensions of employees whose wages and health benefits flatten. A politically brilliant wrinkle in the plan is the insertion by Silver of a sunset provision. Silver wants the cap to expire after the same length of time, previously 8 years, as rent control. This page does not support rent control, but linking the two likely safeguards the existence of both, and the value of the cap, for Long Island, outweighs the negatives of rent control.

And the agreement comes without needed mandate relief. For local entities to be efficient they can't be crushed under costly state demands, like the rule that a school bus seat must be provided for all students every day even if 90 percent of district students do not ride. Cuomo's mandate relief commission has, thus far, not produced a strong plan on reducing expensive state requirements, and such a plan is the key to local entities keeping under the cap without savaging services.

Govs. Eliot Spitzer and David A. Paterson sought a cap, and they deserve credit for sowing the changes Cuomo worked so hard and so effectively to reap. This new path doesn't promise a reduction in taxes or spending, only that the growth will be slowed. Furthermore, there is no cap on state spending and just because Albany reduced its tab this year doesn't mean legislators will do so when revenues rebound. When one form of taxation is capped and another is not, costs tend to shift to the unrestricted trough, so taxpayers must be vigilant in watching that expenses now handled locally don't get transferred to Albany, and won't force increases in state taxes. It's a shame we've had such a deep recession, but if it helps engender reforms that could never have passed when times were good, it will at least have served some productive purpose.